My day started out (what I thought was) very early (ESPECIALLY for a Saturday!). My friend ("feeling green") and I arrived at the Coliseum around 7:50am. In the days leading up to FanFest, we were debating on what time we should get there because we weren't sure whether or not we wanted to wait in the autograph lines early in the morning.
I have this cap that I'm collecting A's autographs on and I only needed Bradley, Kielty, Ellis and Piazza's so I didn't want to buy a bunch of autograph tickets online and find out that I didn't need the autograph of any of the players that were signing. I know, I know. It's for a good cause but I'm on a strict budget and couldn't afford to buy tickets for all 8 sessions!
Anyway ...
feeling green and I decided to go early and see who was signing and when. This was the autograph schedule:
We decided to hop in line and try to get the Bobby Kielty/ Mike Piazza session. It was cold and foggy and miserable but definitely not as cold and miserable as last year's FanFest!
Like Poppy said, the black and silver flags are down and the green and yellow ones are up! Woohoo!
Autograph tickets went on sale at 8:30am and about 25 minutes or something after they went on sale, the A's people announced that the Kielty/ Piazza session was sold out already! BUMMER! (Okay, I was not yelling "BUMMER!" when I found out but this is a kid-friendly site.)
We decided to stay in line to get the Bradley/ Halsey session since we both really <3 Bradley and wanted to get his autograph on our caps. We were probably about 30 people away from getting up to the front when we heard another announcement that the Bradley/ Halsey session was sold out too! BUMMER again!
I will say right now that I do NOT like the schedule-less autograph session pre-sale online idea.
We stepped out of the autograph lines and went in another (LONG) line to get into the Coliseum. While in line, we saw Harden driving by in a cart!
We headed straight to the first Q&A session with Bob Geren, Billy Beane and Mike Piazza. I was surprised and very delighted to find out that the Q&A session was held outdoors instead of in the East Side Club. The sound needed to be louder but still, the setup was SO much better than having it inside!
We left towards the end of the first Q&A to take a walk around the ballpark and see what else was going on. We saw Curt Young hanging out at the KCBS booth.
While walking towards the West Side Club, we saw a line and a large crowd surrounding this area so decided to see what the commotion was about and lo and behold, it was Rich Harden and Danny Haren!! They were signing autographs for kids that signed up for the 2007 A's Kid's Club.
"feeling green" and I decided to stick around to see who the next autograph signers for the kids were. They didn't have a set schedule of who was signing. I think it was just whoever was available at that time. We waited for a bit and who did we see walking our way? None other than the fan-friendliest Nick Swisher! :)
Oh, and his partner was Jason Windsor!
More Swisher and Windsor pictures (but mostly Swish):
We were starting to get tired and hungry by the time the Windsor/ Swisher signing was over so went to go sit and relax. Here's a picture of the ugly field and what was happening on it (the Q&A sessions and the kids' stuff).
Our next stop was the clubhouse tour! We both went on it before but we heard they added a couple of new things in there and besides, it was only five bucks so what the heck. :) These are some of the new pictures (or the ones I don't remember from the previous years) on the walls in the hallway.
- the AL West division champs picture! (damn the blurriness and glare!)
- this OH-SO-ADORABLE picture of a young Swisher with the caption "This fan favorite still celebrates his cowboy roots". (sorry! blurriness and glare again!)
- And this one of Crosby with the caption "This kid would eventually be crowned AL Rookie of the Year". SOOOOO CUTE!!
- I was SO happy to see this still in the hallway leading to the clubhouse!
- I was also very happy to see that this was added in there as well.
- The clubhouse was pretty much the same except they added a big screen tv in there.
- Most of the lockers were empty.
- And they still had some former A's players names up on their old lockers.
Here are some of the lockers that had stuff in it.
- Kendall's
- Swisher's
- Bradley's
- Blanton's
- Kotsay's
- Harden's
- Scutaro's. What is THAT?
After the clubhouse tour, we were heading back up to where the players were signing for the Kid's Club kids. We sat in the Plaza Level while waiting for the next autograph session.
While sitting there, we looked down and we saw Bradley in the dugout area signing autographs and taking pictures with people that were at the end of their clubhouse tour! We couldn't believe our rotten luck! If only we walked a little slower or sat around in the dugout a little longer during our tour! We decided to make a mad dash down to the dugout area to see if we could get Bradley's autograph. Unfortunately, he was busy signing and taking pictures before he had to go to his Q&A session so we didn't get it. I DID get a few picture of him though. :)
Can we keep him please? Pretty please?
We stayed to watch the Bradley/ Kotsay/ Kielty/ Melhuse Q&A which was pretty entertaining. (Read this diary to hear what AN'ers had to say about the Q&A and other things that happened at FanFest.)
The last Q&A couldn't have ended at a more perfect time because the sun was gone and raindrops started to fall.
And THAT, my friends, was my day at the 2007 FanFest! Thanks for reading!!
HOW MANY MORE DAYS UNTIL THE SEASON STARTS?! I. CAN'T. WAIT!!!
